Having already identified the areas of San Francisco that are most vulnerable to a rising sea, San Francisco’s Sea Level Rise Coordinating Committee (SLRCC), which is tasked with developing an interagency understanding of the impact of sea level rise on the city and developing a plan to mitigate its impacts, has now quantified the projected impacts as well.

While recently approved or future developments along San Francisco’s waterfront will be required to incorporate “innovative adaptive management” plans to mitigate the impact of the projected rise, on top of which storm surges typical raise the levels another 12 to 48 inches, there is a significant area of already developed neighborhoods and land that falls within the primary zone of vulnerability.

The projected sea level rise also threatens over 168,000 jobs, 91 miles of city streets, over 2,000 acres of public lands and open space and a total of 19 schools.

And with the city’s vulnerabilities and consequences having been assessed and slated to be presented to San Francisco’s Planning Commission this afternoon, the Sea Level Rise Coordinating Committee can now shift its focus to developing a plan, funding and implementation strategy for moving forward and minimizing the projected impact of sea level rise on San Francisco.

Thanks for the link. Great read. I had noticed the worsening problem around Strata. I see poor Bimma Loft (furniture store) is finally giving its up. Their going out of business sign now includes “Open during construction.”

Need to surcharge all areas outside of the building perimeter, for those building with pile foundations to bedrock, otherwise you will have subsidence. Surcharge design can slow but not stop subsidence.

Check out an piece call “Heaven or High Water: Selling Miami’s Last 50 Years”. That entire state is in the most willfully ignorant kind of denial. They already have sunny day flooding and just act like it doesn’t matter or mean anything.

The population of the islands of Venice is way lower and the corresponding infrastructure vastly less critical. And they built large, complex surge protection at the entrances to the lagoon. They didn’t just accept it.

Venice is worth more important to humanity than SFO or Oracle park – doesn’t matter how much those cost. I bet the rest of your family would say your old vw beetle with 4 kids in it is worth more than a Porshe with Steve Jobs and 4 old Sand Hill venture capilitalists (5) in it. Whether or not something is worth saving can’t be measure by $ alone.

SF doesn’t need a complex surge protection system. All this land on the map is man made fill. It used to be part of the SF Bay. Underwater by 10 feet. Just throw down some more dirt and raise it up more. May be a lot of dirt – buts it is not hard.

Yeah… that’s the point. People in Venice and that visit Venice don’t like that it floods and they didn’t just accept it getting worse without doing anything. The same thing is happening and will increasingly happen here.

The Chart above outlining population and jobs is nice but the reality that this is about real estate, the value of the real estate versus the cost to rebuild the current sea wall and add sea walls.

Florida is funny thanks to those who put idealogy of science; the State of Florida, local governments via sales taxes and Miami are already spending massively on beach nourishment & shore protection, salt water intrusion and so forth due to sea level rise and the strengthening of storms. Put our head in the sand but make sure their is enough sand protecting our tourism trade, beach houses and condos and so forth.

SFO and OAK already raising their levees and seawalls to work through the rising sea level issue. Actually, Oakland Airport currently has a contract out to bid for the specific reason of raising their levees. As Anonymous notes, no more bay infill needed for current runway configurations and no way they are not raising existing seawalls.

The one thing that might not happen is for SFO to add infill to put some more space between and extend runways in order to mitigate delays during inclimate weather. Delays will only increase in time as SFO passenger and takeoffs/landings increase

The proposal from years ago to build new runways out in the Bay to get the 3400′-4400′ runway separation needed for all-weather simultaneous takeoffs and landings went nowhere, and certainly won’t now. However, there are other technologies related to air traffic control and flight being developed and deployed that help reduce weather (i.e. fog) delays even for runway configurations like SFO. In 5-10 years, the minimum runway separation for low-visibility might be significantly reduced or eliminated altogether.

The point of these kinds of papers, despite their false precision – which is probably even more amusing to the informed than it is comforting to the ignorant – isn’t to lay out THE solution as much as it is to inspire thinking toward one; and hopefully counteract false information…which seems to be abundant.